The US pretty much doesn't educate about what happened in Asia during WWII at all. When I found out about the design I winced really hard.

For people who might be in a situation where they don't know how to conceptualize the experience except through Nazis, it's a bit more nuanced.

Rising sun flag (red circle with the red stripes coming out going narrow to thick as they move farther from the center) is like a swastika. That is the flag of WWII imperial Japan specifically. The US sometimes slaps it on stuff to feel "foreign" while being utterly clueless on this. Japanese WWII Soldier uniforms would be like Nazi uniforms. This is associated with policy during that time but not sure if there's a direct equivalence.

SE has been deliberately showing that imperialism and the practices involved are evil through this game. They place the actions of imperialism on villainous Garlemald, and while they seem to want audiences to understand how that happens they also want there to be no mistake that the actions are horrific. They also have been examining how occupied people are impacted on multiple levels too, from homes to families and friends to cultures to individual traumas and on. Not everyone comes out of that at all, never mind emerging strong. That's part of why Fordola got examined the way she was and why we saw the initial behavior of Namai.

We can't take it as a given that current Japan unanimously condemns WWII Japan because that's not the case. There are still WWII apologists around who try to argue that Japan was doing occupied nations "a favor", or who try to dismiss the suffering of women forced into sexual slavery for Japanese troops. SE when they present the horrors of imperialism to Japanese audiences generally seems to be trying to provoke reflection and understanding. It was something I paid attention to through Stormblood, and was actually relieved to see they were as thoughtful as they were.

There will be people who don't want any reference to suffering like that, but I believe very strongly that remembering and using stories as a tool to reflect helps people understand better why those things are awful and must be avoided in reality. It's just important to be honest about it. No caricatures, no glossing over. When there's no humanity in the characters, you're underprepared and still ignorant when it comes to the reality of the situation.

Because SE seems to be generally thinking about this point, IMO it makes the inclusion of the schoolboy/schoolgirl outfits confusing and out of character--especially with limited release in China at first.

I want to check, because it might explain things a bit, if the school uniform was used domestically in Japan as well as in occupied countries. If it was used domestically, it becomes more clearly an oversight while using historical clothes as opposed to specifically looking for clothes imposed during the occupation. If the clothes are exclusive to occupied countries, I'd like to know if SE is aware that it's painful and why.

When they were coming up with glamours, personally I don't think that was a direction they should've gone with... especially since there are large chunks of the world that have no clue what the connotation is. There's a big tonal discrepancy between what was probably intended versus what was received.

Since it's made and in, acknowledging the history and clarifying their stance + why that specific direction was taken would be a good step. SE's in a mess because people paid for that glamour now, both the players and devs who created it at multiple stages of development.

I'm not a fan of censorship or forced removal, because I have absolutely seen those things abused. I do think criticism is valid and opting out of buying the glamour is fair. I personally would in SE's position probably opt to remove the glamour from the mog station because it doesn't fit the games overall message or tone, but players who already have it would still have it because that's what they paid for. If (as I suspect) this was a mistake from not knowing as opposed to viewing the occupation with associated suffering as a good thing, acknowledging that strikes me as appropriate.

This is a very hot button issue. I'm sure there are people who will disagree with me either for going too far or not far enough. I was hesitant to post this to be honest, but I think it's important to discuss.